AlphaBeta Soup
by Lin-ZB
Summary: A collection of mostly undeveloped emotional scenes/vents dealing with the Alpha and Beta Homestuck kids.
1. 3 in the Morning Roxy

**3 in the Morning (Aftermath)**

_People - people as' me why I - tha's dumb cuz I drink for the same reason erryone drinks- but hold up, gotta 'splain who erryone's first. By erryone I mean erryone who drinks like me – like, all the time. Like, drunks who drink. Drinking's like, what we do, man. A drinker is what we is, right?_

_ Right anyway, so, I drink for the same reason erryone drinks. I feel too damn much. Booze's like a depressant, right? Yeah, so, yeah. Depress your feelings an' shit. Makes it hurt less, y'know?_

That was one drunken video blog from when you were what, fourteen? Naw, make it thirteen. Thirteen and just starting to realize that no matter how many pumpkins you handed out, how many carapaced friends you helped you couldn't do anything. You were powerless, trapped, hopelessly naïve, fragile, tiny, _useless_.

Your mom knew the feeling. Why else would she have left so much booze in the house she would never live in? You got spectacularly drunk the first night you mustered up the guts to crack open one of those bottles. It was mind-numbing, and that was all you cared about. You made a habit of it.

But alcohol tolerance builds quickly when you're shitfaced every other day and you tried to drink more and more, going for hard liquor over wine. Eventually the three other humans you managed to find got concerned, and you started to feel the wear on your system. It should have destroyed you, you knew that. But the Condesce had done something to your DNA in that slurry pool, she must have, because you didn't succumb to it the way your mother warned you about (in endless pages of text and a few, precious videos). You rose above the haze, and learned to pace yourself.

Holding a martini always makes you look like a drunk. But you barely even sip it. The poor typing is from hands that shake with fury and grief, and the lazy, wild smiles cover the seething pit in your stomach, and you let yourself feel so much for your friends because if you stop, you'll start feeling for yourself again and you'll lose all control.

Your name is Roxy Lalonde, and you haven't been drunk for a long, long time.


	2. John and Jade Sadstucking on the Ship

It wasn't the first thing they did on the ship. That honor probably went to running around like a kid in a candy store scoping out your new sweet loot.

It wasn't the second, third, or even fourth thing.

It might not have been the one hundredth thing they did.

But whatever number it was assigned, it was a thing that happened.

Jade was reluctant to suggest it at all, so when John brought up the possibility of going to the surface of her magically shrunk planets, she was relieved. She treated the suggestion as the fun excursion it had the potential to be. She said she would love to see John's planet and meet his salamander friends.

And it wasn't a lie. It _was_ fun meeting the salamanders and twirling in the cool breezes beneath endless clouds. It was a beautiful planet.

But it wasn't too long before they decided to take a look at John's house, and she could see it coming over him. He walked with his head down and his hood shading his eyes, not even smiling as they climbed the final stairs to see the house that had become a ladder, reaching for an impossible gate.

Jade opened her mouth, but whatever hollow compliment she was going to utter died on her lips. John had clenched his fists and was staring hard at the ground, gritting his teeth. She bit her lip and touched his shoulder. He jerked away, turning his back on her. But she was having none of it. She grabbed both his shoulders and spun him around, ignoring his startled protests, and dragged him into the strongest hug she could manage.

John protested for a moment, but Jade Harley had spent her childhood shooting wild animals and weeding her garden and her arms were not weak. John gave up, buried his face in her neck, and began to sob.

"You're okay," Jade whispered. "You'll be okay." She tried to think of other things to say, but it was just so much and her own tears were coming thick and fast and finally, all she could do was sink to her knees with John still clinging to her like she was a stuffed bunny.

So they sat and they cried and they screamed at the universe about how unfair it all was, how all they had ever wanted was to have fun and they had never asked for this and they were still just kids and it was so hard and no one understood because there was no one left to understand and it was just so _unfair_.

They haven't spoken of it since. There's no need to, really. It's a mutual understanding – unspoken – that what they have gone through is horrific and terrible, but crying about it will not change any of their circumstances. The only thing to do is move forward, one yard at a time.


End file.
